


Wouldn't Change a Thing

by violetclarity



Series: Percy & Oliver drabbles [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childless by choice, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, M/M, Nostalgia, Vignettes, brief mention of past infidelity, not between percy and oliver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 17:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetclarity/pseuds/violetclarity
Summary: It's hard to restart, so they go slowly.





	Wouldn't Change a Thing

**Author's Note:**

> For May Rarepair Bingo, filling the prompts: "when I see your face there's not a thing I would change;" slow dancing; "you look at me and I can't breathe;" old photographs; freckles; childless by choice; infidelity; limbo; sitting at the bar, seaside, a drink with a mini brolly in it.
> 
> This is a continuation of _Nine Weeks, Years Ago_ and _Carefully Cultivated._ I feel like I put y'all through a little more pain than I meant to with those two, so this one has a more hopeful bent :) I hope you like it!
> 
> The infidelity is a one-sentence mention of an ex who cheated on Percy.

It’s hard to restart, so they go slowly. Percy learns to be honest. Oliver realizes they haven’t grown apart as far as he thought.

Their first real date, at a Muggle pub in Oliver’s neighborhood, he compliments Percy’s freckles and then blushes and looks away.

Percy hates the hesitancy on Oliver’s face, and blurts something out. “You look at me and I can’t breathe.”

That weekend, Percy takes Oliver to a cocktail bar he’s always wanted to try, and Oliver dares him to get the most outrageously named drink on the menu. It comes with a plastic sword skewering two cherries, and Oliver tells a story about the last time he drank it, on a team holiday in the Caribbean. There had been a beachside bar and the team made a competition to see who could collect the most paper brollys from their drinks. The losers had to compete for their honor in a game of limbo. Percy can’t remember the last time he laughed so much.

There are conversations that are less pleasant.

Percy confesses, over a breakfast date, that his short-lived engagement had ended because she cheated on him.

“It’s not that the relationship would have worked anyway,” he says. “I don’t blame her. But it still hurt.”

Oliver squeezes his hand, and the next time they see each other, tells Percy that he doesn’t want kids.

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” he says. “I don’t hate the idea. But that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to have a kid.”

He’s surprised but happy when Percy replies that he feels the same way.

The first time Percy spends the night at Oliver’s, he’s overcome with self-consciousness, mentally cataloging all the ways his body has changed since he was sixteen. Oliver kisses him until he can’t remember to be embarrassed.

His lips brush Percy’s as he whispers. “When I see your face, there’s not a thing I would change.”

The next morning it’s Oliver’s turn to worry, when Percy sees the old photo of them on his refrigerator.

“I just missed you,” Oliver says. Percy doesn’t push.

It’s not easy, finding a way to make two long established lives mesh into one. Oliver has always been independent. Percy has always been prickly. They have habits and patterns that don’t go together, and they both take up the whole bed when they sleep.

But two years later sees them at Albus’s graduation party, slow dancing to the song that drifts through the kitchen window while the teenagers jump and bounce outside. It’s not music meant for a partner, but neither of them thought they were meant for a partner either.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought :)


End file.
